Whiskey Lullabye
by spy41
Summary: Vaughn goes missing for two years, comes back. Sydney's married and he can't deal with it. (One Parter)


**Whiskey Lullabye  
Part I of I**  
  
He sat on the floor of his new apartment, his back leanded up agasint the front of the couch and his legs stretched out under the wooden coffee table that sat in front of him. He craddled the half empty beer in his lap as his other hand occupied the tv remote. He flipped through the channels and finally stopped when he saw a music video begin on CMT. He listened to the guitar strings as Brad Paisley's voice filled the quiet air in his apartment.  
  
**She put him out like the burning end of a midnight cigarette. She broke his heart: He spent his whole life trying to forget. **  
  
The memories plauged him like they did every night, and his imagination caused him more pain. He knew where she was, at home, with her husband. Most likely eating dinner then heading to their room to make love, their room. It used to be his room, his and Sydney's, until she lost all faith in their love. She admitted it to him, more than once, the most recent time was the most heartbreaking.  
  
**Flashback**  
  
_He stood in front of her, waiting for her to talk. She wouldn't look at him, ever since he's been back she's always tried to avoid eye contact with him. He figured it hurt her too much, to see what she had lost. To see how much pain she has cuased him in wake of his return from the dead.  
  
"Do you love me?" He asked once again, this time more direct. She bit her bottom lip and looked down at her left hand, staring at the sparkling diamond ring.  
  
"I have a new life." She said. It was her indirect way of saying 'no', and he understood the meaning.  
  
"I'm glad i meant that much to you." He said. He turned around and walked to the glass door, securing his fingers around the handle.  
  
"Michael." She said softly, her voice crackling. He froze, his hand still laying on the cool metal of the handle, he didn't dare turn around and face her.  
  
"What do you want me to say? I'm married, i can't just forget that." She said trying to defend herself, and maybe, possibly reassure herself.  
  
"Why not? You forgot me." He said sadly.  
"Everyone forgot me." He looked at her over his shoulder.  
  
"I didn't forget you, Vaughn, i never forgot you. You're always on my mind." She said. He looked back at the ground in front of him.  
"I just...i lost faith." She said. He looked at her again.  
  
"In who? Sydney. Me? Or yourself?" He asked. She shook her head as the tears fell from her eyes.  
  
"Both." She said. He could tell she was hurting, but yet she still didn't understand that she was only twisting the knife that she had already stuck into his heart._  
  
**End Flashback**  
  
He had walked out on her that day in the office, leaving her in what used to be their 'flirting corner' when he still meant something to her. But that changed the day she said 'i do' to a man that wasn't him. For the last six weeks he'd been drinking away the pain he holds within himself, but as much as he tried, he could never get drunk enough to forget her, to forget what it felt like when she broke his heart. He'd lost about fifteen pounds from depression that ate away at his heart and soul. For him, there was nothing worse than losing her. He knew that if he was in her position he would have waited for her, but she didn't seem to understand that.  
  
**We watched him drink his pain away, a little at a time, But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind, Until the night: He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger. And finally drank away her memory. **  
  
He sat on the floor staring at the tv as the song continued, the words bringing tears to his eyes. He sniffled as he sat up, grasping the orange bottle that sat on the coffee table, he brought it closer to himself and pushed down on the cap then twisted it, revealing the white tablets inside. He opened his hand and poured about ten of them out. Looking down at them he realized how weak he had become, forgetting her finally came down to this, it made him sick. Closing his eyes, he threw the pills into his mouth and took a big swig of beer, swallowing all of them with ease. He opened his eyes and looked at the phone that sat on the floor next to him, picking it up, he dialed her number.  
  
"Hello?" A male voice answered. He paused for a moment.  
"Hello? Is anyone there?" The voice belonging to her husband, asked.  
  
Vaughn swallowed hard before answereing.  
"Tell her..." He fought the urge to sob.  
"Please tell her....that i'll always love her, and that this isn't her fault." He said. He sniffled as he fell silent. He heard two people talking in the background, then the sound of a woman's voice.  
  
"Hello?" She asked. He closed his eyes as he listened to the way her voice carried over the phone.  
"Vaughn? Is that you?" She asked. He sighed heavily, he didn't want to speak, but he wanted her to know it was him.  
"Talk to me." She said. He heard her walking through the house, he could hear her heels on the hardwood floor.  
  
"I love you, Sydney, i always will, i'm sorry." He said.  
  
"Vaughn? What....what are you talking about? What did you do?" She asked. He felt his eyes start to get heavy.  
  
"It's not your fault, it never was, but...it's the only way..." He said.  
  
"Jesus, Vaughn! Jeff call 911 and send them to Vaughn's place!" She yelled.  
  
"No....Sydney let me go...it's the only way." He said. Tears now fell down his cheeks.  
"It's the only way i won't feel anymore pain." He said. He sniffled.  
  
"Michael." She said crying.  
"Please don't....don't do this to me again." She said. He could tell she was getting worked up, her breathing became eratic.  
  
"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'll always look over you." He said. He sighed.  
"One more thing, there's something i want you to have, in my closet, top shelf, green shoe box. You'll know it when you see it." He said. She didn't speak, all he heard were her cries.  
  
"Vaughnnnn....please." She said as she started sobbing.  
  
"I love you, Sydney. Never forget that. I'll see you again...someday." He said. He tore the receiver away from his ear and stared at it for a moment before pressing the end button and setting it back on the couch. Not two seconds later it started ringing again, he knew it was her. He stood up and laid down on the couch.  
  
"Just let me go." He said softly.  
"Let me go..." He folded his hands over his chest, and let the darkness finally take him.  
  
**Life is short, but this time it was bigger, Than the strength he had to get up off his knees. We found him with his face down in the pillow, With a note that said: "I'll love her till I die."**  
  
He was already gone when the paramedics got to his apartment. Sydney arrived with Wiess not five minutes later, and she broke down in the doorway when she saw him laying on the couch.  
  
"Noooooo!" She cried as she slid to the floor crying. She shook her head as Eric Weiss' arms came around her, trying to comfort her as he cried himself.  
"Why?" She asked over and over again. She somehow got free of Eric's embrace and crawled over to the couch and sat in front of him, taking his cold face in her hands she let out a sob.  
"I do love you." She said softly. The EMT's stood around in a circle quietly, one of the woman couldn't take it and had to get out of the house as tears began to fill her own eyes. She leaned down and kissed his lips softly, they were no longer warm and inviting as she once knew them to be.  
"I never lost faith in you, Michael, only in myself." She said as she pushed the hair away from his forehead. Sobs over took her body again and she leaned down and laid her head on his still chest.  
"We'll find eachother, we always find eachother." She said softly. She pulled away and placed soft kisses on his face, and lastly his lips.  
"I'll love you forever." She said. She stood up and turned back to Eric, who was standing at the doorway staring at her.  
"I'll be right back." She said. She walked down the hallway to his bedroom and opened the door, turning on the light she walked inside and opened the closet doors. She looked up at saw a green shoe box, bringing it down, she took of the lid and it fell to the floor. Inside on the top of a bunch of pictures was a watch. She immediatly recognized it as his fathers. She picked it up and studied it, it was now working again, and it ironcially was set to the right time. Which puzzled her, because he said he never got it fixed. She slipped it onto her left wrist and put the box back where it had came from, she left everything else as it was.  
  
**Three Days Later**  
  
She sat in the front of the row at his funeral, sitting next to her father and her soulmates best friend. She held onto the white rose that was given to her at the beginging of the service. She wasn't really paying attention to the preists words, instead she was watching a greiving mother cry over the loss of her son. She was in her own world until she felt her father sqeezze her hand. She looked up to see everyone looking at her, waiting for her to speak. She took a deep breath and stood up, she stepped up to the front and stood in front of his dark wooden coffin. Kendall had given her approval to come up with a alternate story for the cause of his death, she didn't think it was fair to have people think of him as weak because he took his own life. She swallowed down her tears.  
  
"For um....for those of you that don't know me, i'm Sydney Bristow. Michael and i...we were friends, and we did love eachother. I...." She had to look down in order to talk.  
"Michael Vaughn was the greatest person i've ever come to know, he was so...so selfless, and so caring, and loving, and the thing he cared about the most was to get me to smile." She sniffled.  
"He truly was an angel, i don't doubt that, i know he's looking down on all of this right now and i know he doesn't want any of us to cry for him, but it's just too hard." She said.  
"He gave his life for his country, he...saved my life...more than once, and he was more than most people knew. I will truly miss him, for the rest of my days, there won't be a moment, that i won't think about him, or what we used to have. What got me through the last few days was telling myself he's where he belongs, he's in heaven, he's in a better place." She said. She turned to the coffin and placed her hand over it and took a deep breath.  
"I love you....please wait for me." She said softly. She leaned down and kissed the cool wood. It was that day she realized that he was never coming back, because she had been so selfish she had lost him, and she'd never get him back.  
  
**And when we buried him beneath the willow, The angels sang a whiskey lullabye.**  
  
It wasn't until three and a half years later that she realized her time had finally run out. She woke up early on a sunday morning, alone of course, she had divorced Jeff not long after losing Vaughn again. She had decided to go for a run, which she did often, but not at 5:00 in the morning. Slipping into her jogging clothes she picked up Vaughn's fathers watch and looked at it, noticing it had once again stopped. She stared at it for a few moments, confused. She slipped it on her wrist and shook off any doubts she had. She turned to her bed and looked the dried out white rose that she had hung on the wall above it, along with the gold cross he had gotten her for her birthday more than five years before. She smiled slightly before taking her walkman, she ran out of the house and down the street as she put the small ear peices in her ears, she turned on the music and realized she must have accidently messed up the dials because she got a country station.  
  
**The rumors flew but nobody knew how much she blamed herself. For years and years, she tried to hide the whiskey on her breath. She finally drank her pain away, a little at a time, But she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind. **  
  
As she ran she rememered the song from the night he had killed himself, it was playing on the tv as she had said her final good-bye to him that night. She crossed the street, still totally ingrossed in the song to see the car approaching her to the left, she didn't hear the horn or the screeching tires, but she felt the impact. She was thrown fifty feet across the pavement before rolling to a stop, she laid face up. And she stared up at the sky, unable to move anything. She heard screams and she saw people gather around her.  
"Miss, are you okay?"  
"Someone call an ambulance!"  
"She's not going to make it."  
She felt her eyes get heavy, and she finally realized why the watch had stopped that given day, she was going to see him soon, very soon. She listened to the last of the lyrics to the song in her head phones as she fought to keep her eyes open a moment longer.  
  
**She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger. And finally drank away his memory. Life is short, but this time it was bigger, Than the strength she had to get up off her knees. We found her with her face down in the pillow, Clinging to his picture for dear life. **  
  
Her eyes finally closed for the last time, and she finally felt at peace with everything, the worries where now gone, and she felt reborn. Within a matter of seconds she was standing on the outside of the crowd. The EMT's arrived and tried to revive, as she just watched.  
"We lost her." The man said giving up. She watched as the crowd stood there, many in shock and disbelief. She looked down for a breif moment then looked across the street. He was standing there, dressed in white. He was smiling at her, lovingly. She walked across the street and came to stand a few feet in front of him. He stared at her for a moment, before holding up his hand. A small smile made way on her face as she set her hand in his. He pulled her closer to him and kissed her softly. He pulled away and looked down at her.  
"You found me." He said. She shook her head.  
"No....We found eachother."  
  
**We laid her next to him beneath the willow, While the angels sang a whiskey lullabye. La la la la la la la La la la la la la la.**


End file.
